Just outside Johannesburg last weekend, a group of South Africans met with a group of Cubans. It was a non-governmental meeting — civil society, not happy to leave matters to governments, working out the potential for cooperation between the two countries. It was also a rare meeting of international solidarity where South Africans were not victims looking for aid and assistance.
The conference comes at a time when this country’s foreign policy is veering confusedly all over the place, one minute showing signs of clear moral and strategic purpose, the next lurching to crude pragmatism.
A few weeks ago, the Department of Foreign Affairs was explaining away our intention to open an embassy in Havana on the grounds that “our foreign policy is now de-ideologised; we have an embassy in Indonesia and we will have one in Cuba”. But last weekend Aziz Pahad, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, said the conference “will reinforce the view that solidarity with other struggling peoples is not only morally correct but it helps make us a more caring and better nation.”
It is not so much that our policy is de-ideologised, but that it can be shaped to meet the needs of different audiences.
In conducting our foreign relations, we have been reluctant to play our strongest card — our moral standing, encapsulated in the personality of our president — often for good reason. But there are some international issues where a position of moral and political leadership would enhance our economic and financial position in the world and bring a range of benefits.
Cuba is one such issue. In pursuing its blockade of the island, the US is hostage to old Cold War dogmas, a resurgent Republican right wing and a vociferous and even more right-wing Cuban exile community.
The US is out of step with the world. Last year’s motion in the United Nations General Assembly condemning the American blockade of Cuba drew 104 votes.
Apart from the moral issue, the US is committing an even worse international relations sin: doggedly pursuing a policy which patently does not work.
What is needed is a policy which demonstrates to Fidel Castro that his fight against poverty is best served — and not threatened — by democratisation. South Africa, one of the few countries with credibility in both Havana and Washington, could play a role in this.